Things Happen to Everybody

Things happen to everybody. That's a pretty universally accepted premise isn't it?

Rhetorical questions like that are good because they make the reader feel like their opinion matters, but really you're just reading some words on a screen aren't you? You can't actually reply can you? You're an idiot aren't you? Oh, what's that? You can reply via the comment box below? Well, I feel like an idiot now. You turned the tables on me, and you managed to do it by doing nothing but read along these sentences that I wrote in a left to right fashion, although knowing you, you probably weren't reading this properly anyway. You've probably got a hi-larious video open at the same time of a cat masturbating.

But it's true isn't it? Things do happen to everybody. Things certainly happen to me, but could I be presumptuous enough to think that you have any interest in them at all? Yes I could is the answer. You're dying to know, I can tell. So, for your reading pleasure here is a completely true story about something that happened to me yesterday. It will be written with no humour intended, and will act only as something for you to absorb and subsequently use to think you know me on a more personal level, even though you don't even know me on a not personal level? Impersonal?

Impersonal

1. Lacking personality; not being a person: an impersonal force.

2. a. Showing no emotion or personality: an aloof, impersonal manner

Sounds about right.

DVD's From The Library – A short story for your amusement

The best thing about getting a DVD out from the Library is that it's cheaper than renting it from Blockbusters. The worst thing about getting a DVD out from the library is that when I take it up to the desk, I am so sure that the librarian thinks I'm an uneducated fuck-wit that I also place a book that I don't even want underneath it just to needlessly press the fact that I can indeed read, and that I do so frequently as well as enjoying the art form that is the moving picture. If you're going to look down on me, don't stock DVDs you deranged psychopath. But maybe she doesn't think that at all. Maybe she just thinks I'm a cheapskate, which I can deal with, because I am.

The Library I get my DVDs from has a preposterously unrealistic expectation that the films you rent should be returned the next day, before 12 in the afternoon. There is then a £1 charge for every hour they are late. I don't understand this. The 2 films I rented seemed relatively unloved , 1 of which hadn't been rented before me since 2 years ago. As for the other one, the Library had 8 copies of it. What do they need them back so soon for? My Library is overly possessive.

I arrive to return my DVDs 2 hours late. I am informed that I will have to pay a fine of £4. I go over to the machine to get some money out so I can pay the fine, as I do so I am approached by 2 Muslim girls holding a bucket. They ask me if I want to buy a doughnut for charity. I tell them I don't really like doughnuts, but I will give to their charity. I ask them what the charity is. They don't tell me it's name, but they inform me it is to help orphans in Islamic countries. It sounds admirable enough so I give them 50p and they leave. As I pay my Library fine, I can't stop thinking that I would have preferred to give £4 to the charity instead of to this Library. I leave feeling deflated and angry with myself. Self loathing is my mood for at least an hour afterwards. I vow never to rent a DVD from that Library again, even though I know that I will. I get home and have some dinner (I can't remember what it was) Then I watch some television and go to bed. Then, the next day I do a few similar things and a few other things that are different. Days vary.

The End.

Halloween - Part 1

Halloween is coming. You can tell it's almost Halloween, because where the London air usually smells like piss and buildings, for one month it smells oddly clean and fresh. It must be the Government that do it, pumping large quantities of oxygen into the streets to balance out the car fumes.

I remember that when I was about 12, Halloween really was a holiday. Every idiot in the street dressed up as something and, depending on their age, either walked around knocking on potential paedophile's houses begging for handfulls of chewits or ran around knocking out children and setting off fireworks in doorways. Thems where the days. 

#1 Costume of choice among dick-heads

Picture if you will, me. Albeit, a lot smaller, dressed like a vampire and considerably more male looking. With me is a Mummy, Wednesday Adams, Zorro and some kid I can't remember wearing a cheap mask with a hoody. We already know it's been a good Halloween so far, because we have considerably more sweets than pieces of fruit. Most old people don't open the door, but when they do they seem to feel such a duty to children (of fear of) that they hand over whatever they have, this usually being apples, oranges or 20p coins. We are standing outside our last house of the evening. I ring the doorbell and after about half a minute, a small Chinese woman appears. She screams in delight. "You come in!" she keeps repeating to us. "Don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to strangers" loops over and over again in my head. It's true that we're taught not to talk to strangers, but in turn we were also encouraged by parents to participate in this semi-begging tradition which basically relies on the concept of talking to people you don't know. I decide that free sweets are too important, and we all go in.

"This place looks safe"

There we are, sitting on a sofa in a living room that can only be described as stagnant. There are portable wardrobes and clothes everywhere. The sound and smell of frying bacon resonates from the unseen kitchen outside. The Chinese woman is still staring at us and laughing in joy. One of us tells her "Erm, we should really get going now" But she leaves the room and calls up the stairs. "STEPHEN!" she calls, then re-enters the living room. "You stay here!" she tells us. I start to wonder if we're going to be killed. Then I begin to think it's most probable that we're going to be killed. After about 30 seconds of waiting for this Stephen character to come downstairs, I decide that we're definately going to be killed. I can sense that we're all very worried. I keep thinking to myself that in a few days there is going to be a school assembly about us, which will act as a lesson for the remaining living pupils about why it's not good to enter a strangers house. Stephen enters the room. He is a very tall, heavy set Jamaican man with dreadlocks and something behind his back. He kneels down on one knee and points a polaroid camera at us all. "Say cheese!" he grins before capturing a moment in time, where 5 terrified children sat on his now urine warm sofa, wondering if their 12 years on Earth had been wasted or not. Then they let us leave... with no sweets what-so-ever.

The last thing you smell before you die

It's an odd thing to know that somewhere, in some stranger's possession is a childhood photo of yourself. I suppose I only told that story because Halloween is a time for such things, and as it happens it is completely true. The greatest thing about Halloween is the folklore that children make for themselves. "Don't knock on that house, a registered sex offender lives there" or "Didn't you know that 10 years ago today a child was brutally murdered with a hammer down that ally-way?" Kid's can be so cute.

My road used to be full of kids running around, knocking on doors, but last year I got 1 person knock on my door, and they were putting in half the required effort at most.

I know who I blame for it

Sod.

Recycling

Bromley is a place that's technically in Kent, but it's also sort of in London. I say this because I live in London and can get one short bus there using an Oyster card, so fuck you Kent it's ours

Bromley has a thing called a "shopping centre" where people go to give other people money, then those other people give them carrier bags with things inside and then everyone is happy at the end of the day. It's an amazing premise.

While I was in Bromley the other day, I discovered something amazing. Living in Lewisham, we have to put up with a council that is only concerned with the recycling of rubbish. I would like to personally commend Bromley Council then, for taking the time to think outside the box.

I spotted this amazing recycling unit on the main highstreet

 It's about time local councils started taking into consideration the need for this sort of recycling unit. Bromley council hasn't just implemented one of these bins though, they are leading the way with TWO

If you need to make a deposit, this bin can be found at the bus stop just outside Bromley's Sainsbury's.

(Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham)

We need progress Lewisham Council!